Education and Outreach | Fundamental Research | Enhancing Productivity | Protection of Life and Property

ESIG 2004 Achievements

Fundamental Research

Carbon Cycle Science

Life on earth depends on the cycling of carbon through myriad transformations and transfers among the atmosphere, the oceans, plants and animals, soils, and even rocks and sediments far below the surface. In the atmosphere, carbon exists primarily in the form of the gas carbon dioxide (CO2). During FY04, ESIG participated in several activities centered around the use of carbon cycle scientific information. Lisa Dilling co-convened a special session at the AGU on the “Role of Human Dimensions in the Carbon Cycle in North America.” It highlighted aspects of energy use, technology, and the role of policy in affecting carbon budgets over the continent. Dilling is also a member of the Coordinating Team that has begun to develop a significant contribution to carbon cycle science through a “State of the Carbon Cycle Report” (SOCCR). SOCCR will summarize current knowledge about carbon cycle properties and change, as well as provide scientific information for decisionmaking support and policy formulation concerning the carbon cycle. Dilling is joined on the Coordinating Team by colleagues from the Oak Ridge Laboratory, the US Geological Survey, and the Consensus Building Institute. An essential aspect of the development of SOCCR during FY05 is the development of an interactive high-quality website, which will reside at NCAR under Dilling's supervision. This website is now available at www.isse.ucar.edu/soccr/.

During FY04, Shui Bin and Robert Harriss studied carbon emissions encompassed in the North American Free Trade Agreement in order to initiate a study on CO2 embodiment in trade, as well as examine possible improvements to current CO2 accounting and trade accounting schemes. As one of the results, Shui and Harriss suggest a proposed within-border-consumption (WBC) accounting framework to better estimate a country's carbon emissions, which would more accurately mirror a country's actual share of global carbon emissions. Based on the WBC, a concept entitled the "broad term of trade balance" (BTOTB) was developed to integrate both financial terms and CO2 terms of trade in the unit of monetary value. BTOTB provides a new perspective to discuss conventional trade issues. A paper is currently in preparation. Shui and Harriss are also working on another paper that explores the issue of carbon dioxide emissions embodied in Sino-US trade flows and suggest that any trade issue should be discussed and evaluated in the context of both economic and environmental impacts. The concept of BTOTB is expanded in this manuscript. Both will be submitted for publication during FY05.

Circle of Knowledge: Climate, Weather and Environmental Change

Shannon McNeeley has been in collaboration with Alaska Natives along the Koyukuk River in Alaska and scientists who study Arctic and global climate change to document Native Elders' observations and stories of change. A paucity of data and observations in this region have increased interest in the integration of western science with indigenous knowledge and Native observations of climate change. Native elders and hunters possess a legacy of traditional knowledge and observations of weather and environmental change, and they are concerned about the dramatic changes they are witnessing. In 2004, in partnership with the village Tribal Councils of Hughes, Huslia, and Koyukuk, McNeeley began the interview process and interviewed some 20 Elders in these villages. This research will continue in FY05.

Communication and Social Change

This project builds upon the foundation of an interdisciplinary workshop held at NCAR during FY04. The workshop was funded by the MacArthur Foundation, NSF, ESIG, and the Walter Orr Roberts Institute, entitled Communicating Urgency, Facilitating Social Change: New Strategies for Climate Change. Designed to maximize communication among participants from different fields, Susanne Moser and Lisa Dilling of ESIG invited more than 40 participants from different disciplines and from the practitioner community to exchange ideas about how to achieve successful communication between the climate science and climate policy, business, and NGO communities. Based on the workshop deliberations, Moser and Dilling are currently writing an edited volume on effective communication and social change strategies that support societal response to climate change. An interactive website has been designed for use in project development at www.isse.ucar.edu/communication/

Effects of Climate on Simulated Crops

While most studies of the impacts of climate change on ecosystems have examined the effect of mean change in climate, it is widely believed that climate variability, in addition to the mean, has substantial effects on ecosystems. This issue is becoming more important as we learn more about how climate may vary in coming decades. During FY04, Linda Mearns and colleagues continued examination of the possible additional effects of changes in variability on simulated crops. Mearns, with Cynthia Rosenzweig and Richard Goldberg (NASA Goddard, New York), continued research on the effect of changes in variability of climate on simulated crop yields at other locations in the Great Plains and Midwest. They applied time series of temperature and precipitation with changed variances to CERES-corn and CROPGRO-soybean models. Results so far indicate that increased variance of temperature and precipitation cause substantial decreases in yield, while decreases in variability cause only slight increases in yield. They have applied changes in variance from two major atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs), the NCAR Parallel Climate Model (PCM), and that of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, for the region of the Midwest and Great Plains to these crop models for the end of the twenty-first century. With Marta Vinocur (National University of Redo, Cordoba, Argentina ), Mearns has investigated simulated peanut crop responses to climate variability in Cordoba, Argentina. Using PeanutGRO, they explored the effects of different combinations of mean and variance changes of temperature. They found that the crop model was sensitive to both mean and variance changes, but that increases in temperature variance substantially exacerbated decreases in yield and greatly increased the likelihood of crop failures. They are currently exploring the causes for these crop model responses.

Ethics of Generation and Use of Weather and Short-term Climate Forecasts

In FY04, Eugene Wahl and Rebecca Morss systematically analyzed weather and short-term climate forecast generation and use from an ethical perspective, using methods and criteria drawn from modern applied ethics. By applying the method of iterative, reflective specification (developed by John Rawls) to specific case situations, they examined how three analytic criteria from the Georgetown School of Medical and Business Ethics (beneficence, justice, and autonomy) can be interpreted in the arena of weather and climate forecasting. A manuscript based on the results is currently in preparation. Dale Jamieson (New York University) is acting as adviser on systematic and applied ethics.

Land Cover Forcing from SRES Scenarios in Climate Models

As part of the Assessment Initiative, this project was begun in FY03 in collaboration with CGD to extend future climate change scenarios to include human impacts on land cover and soils. Linda Mearns and colleagues in ESIG, Gordon Bonan in CGD, and Johannes Feddema (Project Lead, University of Kansas) have created two alternative present-day land cover representations and run them in the Parallel Climate Model (PCM). Initial results indicate that the model is very sensitive to land cover change. Additionally, they found that when changing from potential vegetation to an equivalent present-day land cover, the PCM predicts significant cooling, particularly in the midlatitude of the Northern Hemisphere. During FY04, crop models for spring wheat, winter wheat, corn, and soybeans were developed and incorporated into the CLM (Community Land Model). They were designed specifically for use in global climate models. Information on the model runs is available at www.cgd.ucar.edu/tss/clm. This ongoing project will continue through FY05.

Little Ice Age: Climate Variability of Past Centuries

The Little Ice Age component of the Assessment Initiative focuses on the uncertainty characteristics of external forcing, its influence on climate, including variability on different spatial and temporal scales. This multiyear project was initiated in FY03 and continued development during FY04, in cooperation with CGD, to involve simulations of multiple centuries, including an initial period of the Little Ice Age. This project “fingerprints” volcanic and solar forcings. Secondly, this project will continue its investigation into the role of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), with emphasis between empirical paleo-data and patterns of forced temperature variation. Additionally, regional expressions of forced and unforced climate variability as generated by a coupled climate model are being evaluated and compared to reconstructions with multi-proxy networks. New developments in climate mode response to external forcing are explored as well. Linda Mearns, Eugene Wahl, along with Caspar Ammann, Doug Nychka, and Bette Otto-Bleisner of CGD, have begun the processing phase of this research. Some studies are taking shape or are being evaluated against existing base data.

Observing Network Design for Weather and ENSO Prediction

Because resources for meteorological observations are limited, choices must be made among proposed enhancements to the weather prediction observing system. In FY04, Rebecca Morss analyzed meteorological observing system design from a public policy perspective. The results are presented in a manuscript (accepted for publication in BAMS) that explains the role of problem definition in policy research and decisionmaking to a meteorological audience, using 5 alternate definitions of the observing system design problem to demonstrate how different problem definitions can lead to different results. An important consideration in observing system design is the costs and benefits of different observations. Although the meteorological community has discussed the question of optimal investment in observations for more than three decades, it still lacks a practical, systematic framework for analyzing the issue. In FY04, Morss, Kathleen Miller, and Maxine Vasil (University of Colorado graduate student) developed an economic approach to analyzing the optimal observing system. They present the approach in a publication (in press, Monthly Weather Review) and then combine meteorological cost/benefit information to demonstrate the approach for a simplified version of the actual observing and prediction system.

The Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) array of moored buoys in the tropical Pacific Ocean is a major source of data to understand and predict ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation). Despite the importance of the TAO array, limited work has been performed to date on the number and locations of observations required to predict ENSO effectively. To address this issue, Morss and David Battisti (University of Washington) performed a series of observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) with an intermediate coupled model. The experiments suggest which observations are most important for ENSO prediction and were used to develop efficient observing networks for forecasting ENSO in this simulated system. Two publications based on the results appeared during FY04 in the Journal of Climate (available in PDF format in the Publications section of this report).

Outlook for US Meteorological Research in a Commercializing World: Lessons from Biotechnology

The future of meteorological research looks bright in many ways: knowledge and supporting technology are advancing rapidly, and the accuracy and timeliness of meteorological forecasts improve each year. As a result, new and growing markets eagerly await the products of weather research, and opportunities for commercialization abound. Other trends, however, give cause for concern. In particular, the growing value of weather services is straining long-established public, private, and international partnerships, and the meteorological community is beginning to see signs of some of the same commercialization difficulties that now plague biotechnology. During FY04, Rebecca Morss and William Hooke (AMS) wrote a manuscript that synthesizes lessons from the biotechnology community's experience with commercialization of research. They point out that meteorological community must initiate a discussion within the community to raise awareness of these potential pitfalls in order to minimize the risks. The manuscript, "Outlook for US Meteorological Research in a Commercializing World: Lessons from Biotechnology," has been submitted to BAMS.

Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment (RISA) Program

Susanne Moser facilitated an ongoing collaborative effort between NOAA's RISA Program for Climate-Sensitive Decision-Making and Policy Planning and NCAR scientists. The goal of the collaboration is to support each other in fulfilling common strategic and scientific goals. The RISA program currenty supports various teams around the country to develop climate variability and change information relevant to local and regional decisionmaking. Decisionmakers must be made aware of the multiple stresses that climate-sensitive sectors and environments are facing. The first part of the NCAR/RISA collaboration consists of supporting exploratory workshops for those regions of the country that currently do not have RISA centers. The first of these workshops was held in Dallas, Texas in December 2003, sponsored by NOAA's Office of Global Programs and the National Weather Service. A summary report was prepared by Moser and colleagues, "Enhancing Decision-Making through Integrated Climate Research: Southern Great Plains." A second workshop was held in Anchorage, Alaska in February 2004, and a workshop report entitled "Enhancing Decision-Making through Integrated Climate Research: Alaska" was prepared by Moser. This collaborative effort will continue with an exploration of more direct NCAR/RISA involvement during FY05.

Societal Impacts and Economic Benefits of Weather Information

During FY04, Jeff Lazo (ESIG/RAP) and researchers from NCAR's COMET program, RAP, and MMM formed a joint collaborative program (Societal Impacts Program, or SIP) on the societal impacts and economic benefits of weather information, with funding from the US Weather Research Program. Bill Mahoney (RAP), Robert Harriss, and Rebecca Morss were instrumental during FY04 in laying the groundwork and developing the research agenda for this program. Priority activities include the development of a Digital Library on Societal Impacts (DLSI) with Eric Scharff as Project Lead. DLSI will be a web-based resource for collecting and disseminating research findings related to the use and value of weather forecasts. SIP researchers have also begun a literature synthesis to identify gaps and needs in weather products from a user's perspective. Asim Zia was hired to work with Morss to undertake original research related to the SIP and assist in the development of DLSI. Working with COMET, the SIP is also developing a blueprint to examine the capacity of meteorological services worldwide with the goal of improving the application of new science and technology developed in THORPEX. (THORPEX is a ten-year international research and development program focused on improving high-impact weather forecasts on a one- to 14-day timescale to benefit society.) Another priority of SIP is the improvement of quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs). To help set priorities in QPF-related research and product development, Asim Zia, Morss, and Lazo will conduct a synthesis of research on the societal, economic, and environmental value of QPFs during FY05. This is a follow-up of work begun in FY04 by Morss for the USWRP. SIP researchers have begun planning for a workshop in FY05 to develop a social science research agenda on the hurricane forecasting and warning system.

Also during FY04, Morss collaborated with a number of researchers in the international societal impacts and weather prediction communities to develop the Societal and Economic Applications (SEA) components of the international and US science and implementation plans for THORPEX. Major elements of the SEA components of THORPEX include: identifying high-impact weather forecasts, assessing the impact of improved forecasts, developing advanced verification measures, estimating costs and benefits of improved forecast systems, developing new user-specific weather products, and facilitating the transfer of THORPEX advances to forecast centers around the world. This effort will continue in FY05, as THORPEX planning continues at the international and national levels.

Richard Katz, in collaboration with Martin Ehrendorfer (University of Innsbruck, Austria), developed a Bayesian approach to decisionmaking using ensemble weather forecasts. During FY04, a counterintuitive result was obtained, indicating that the economic value of ensemble-based probability forecasts could decrease as the ensemble size increases; that is, if the uncertainty in deriving the estimated forecast probability is ignored, as is common practice.

Superstorm ‘93

On 12-15 March 1993, a major winter storm affected 26 US states, Cuba, and eastern Canada, causing high winds, severe weather, storm surges, heavy rain, record snowfalls, and record low temperatures. Several weather prediction models and forecasters at the National Meteorological Center recognized the threat of a significant storm and were able to predict the storm several days in advance. However, both models and forecasters failed to predict the extent of the rapid deepening of the storm. Headed by Michael Glantz, this two-year project involves NCAR scientists across three divisions: MMM (Morss and Liam Cavanaugh), ESIG, and CGD (Joe Tribbia), as well as researchers from the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, Santiago de Compostela University in Spain, and Uktal University in Orissa, India. They have studied the event as being representative of a class of events and approached the project as a unique and exploratory effort to integrate meteorological and societal impacts knowledge, research, and research applications. During FY04, Glantz expanded the project to examine the “supercyclone” that occurred in Orissa, India, in October 1999. Preliminary results and more information about the project are available on the website at www.isse.ucar.edu/superstorm/

Uncertainty in Climate Model Simulations

This continuing project of the Assessment Initiative developed techniques for quantifying uncertainty in climate model projections during FY04 and began to apply these techniques to transient runs of AOGCMs (atmosphere-ocean general circulation models). Linda Mearns joined Doug Nychka (CGD), along with Claudia Tebaldi (ESIG/RAP) to analyze “super ensembles” of climate change runs in order to characterize the uncertainty in the AOGCMs. Using this method, probability density functions (PDFs) of climate change signals (temperature and precipitation changes as projected by the AOGCMs at the end of the 21st century) are produced at regional levels. In the statistical model, the team formalized two criteria of model reliability: the climate change responses observed in the AOGCMs with large biases in reproducing current climate, and AOGCMs that do not agree with the majority of the ensemble members. These retain relatively less weight in the final results. The PDFs derived are being used as input of climate change impact studies at regional levels; for example, in a water resource study focused on the Sacramento river basin in California, and the method will be applied to the model runs that are being produced for the IPCC's next assessment process (AR4). A paper was accepted for publication on this process in the Journal of Climate.

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Education and Outreach | Fundamental Research | Enhancing Productivity | Protection of Life and Property